


don't know what we craved, it remains unspoken

by jublis



Series: blackbox [3]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Angst, Banter, Brother Feels, Canon Compliant, Character Study, Fluff, Friendship, Gen, How is this not a tag, Humor, Implied Hinata Shouyou/Kageyama Tobio, Miya Atsumu-centric, aran doesnt get paid enough for this, as written by suna, but it's very mild, canon compliant is just things you can’t tell me didn’t happen, i just think siblings are neat, kita and his miya twin sixth sense, life is a party the miya twins are the piñata and i have a baseball bat, local asshole adopted by literal ray of sunshine, mentions of time skip, new game: can you tell the author is in love with hinata shouyou, some ocs for storytelling purposes - Freeform, the last two are only mentioned!, u can definitely interpret this as atsuhina this is a safe space
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-27
Updated: 2020-10-27
Packaged: 2021-03-08 17:54:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,673
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27220789
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jublis/pseuds/jublis
Summary: Osamu looks askance at him, looking way too pleased with himself, and hugs his legs to his chest before tipping his head back to answer. “I meant,” he says, enunciating every word carefully, “that you’re a bad loser because you’re never ever going to be happy when you lose. And you’ll be a badwinnerbecause when you do win, you won’t even be happy. You’ll just want to win more.”Atsumu opens his mouth, then closes it again. His hands tighten into fists next to him, pulling at strands of grass, fingernails scraping the earth. “Of course I’ll be happy,” he answers, softly, but he doesn’t know who he’s trying to convince. “Of course,I will.”He doesn’t want to admit his brother is right. Ironically enough, it would feel like a defeat.Or, Miya Atsumu's name proves itself more than once. Featuring storms, promises, the Cain instinct, and Hinata Shouyou being too wise for his years.
Relationships: Hinata Shouyou & Miya Atsumu, Kita Shinsuke & Miya Atsumu, Miya Atsumu & Inarizaki Volleyball Club, Miya Atsumu & Miya Osamu
Series: blackbox [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1988422
Comments: 26
Kudos: 123





	don't know what we craved, it remains unspoken

**Author's Note:**

> why hi!! hello!!! i really hope y'all like this one. it speaks pretty directly to my hinata fic, so it would be a good compliment to read either before or after this, but you don't have to!
> 
> title is from "we carry the feeling," by nana grizol.
> 
> see y'all at the end notes!

**i.**

All of Atsumu’s earliest memories have Osamu in them, in one way or the other. 

Of course, that’s to be expected. He doesn’t realize, as a child, that his existence is so intrinsically linked to his brother’s, that he’s made up of all the empty spaces Osamu doesn’t fill, and so on. He _does_ know that they’re a matched set; it’s only fair, what with the way barely anyone bothers to tell the two apart for the first eight years of their life. Their relatives get them matching clothes with their names sewn into the backs — _So we can know who’s who,_ a distant uncle says, with a glint in his eyes, before promptly handing the shirt saying Osamu to Atsumu, and the one saying Atsumu to Osamu. 

When he’s nine years old, he looks at his brother’s face. Really looks, from the bridge of his nose to the downturn of his lips, the small burst of sunburnt skin across his cheeks, the half-lidded stare he’s so familiar with. And with that, he comes to an evolutionary opinion.

“You and I,” he announces, “look nothing alike.”

Osamu rolls his eyes at him. “Thank you, Captain Obvious. Now tie your shoes, or you’re gonna trip.”

Atsumu makes a face at him, but dutifully bends forward to tie the lace in his running shoes. They’re sitting on the grass at one of the many public parks near their house, sun-soaked and dirt streaked. It’s a summer day, and if Atsumu puts out his tongue and breathes real deep, he can taste the oncoming storm that’ll fall down just before sunset. It’s the sort of thing only countryside folk can tell apart, his father tells him. His grandmother says, _You people drive past one dirt road on your way to work and think you can already call yourself country folk? Have some respect._

Osamu follows Atsumu’s gaze, squinting his eyes against the light. “Think we can make it to five laps before it drops?”

“Well, I know _I_ can,” Atsumu says, crossing his arms and tilting his chin up. “If _you_ don’t slow us down.”

Osamu looks unimpressed. “You’re the one who’s lost the past five races in a row.”

Atsumu lets out an undignified squeak and lunges at him, face burning, and hits his hand blindly around Osamu’s face until he can find his mouth to shut him up. “But you’re not supposed to say it, ‘Samu!”

As always, his brother is not deterred by the unspoken decency laws of roughhousing, and promptly licks Atsumu’s palm, making him screech and jump away, rubbing his hand against his shirt with small mutters of _gross, gross, gross._ “You’re a really bad loser, ‘Tsumu,” Osamu says, propping himself up from the ground by his elbows. “Mama says so all the time.”

“Well, what’s _that_ supposed to mean?” Atsumu grumbles, rubbing a fist against his eye. “How can anyone be a good loser? There’s no good about losing. That’s why no one ever says someone’s a bad _winner._ ”

Osamu just looks at him, in that sort of way that makes Atsumu feel as if he should be ducking his head—in shame or respect, he doesn’t know. He knows that _he’s_ the eldest sibling, in spite of what it looks like, and that’s supposed to mean something. Only he thinks somewhere along the way they lost track of who’s supposed to be taking care of whom, who’s supposed to be watching out for the other. Maybe it’s a twin thing, like you see on TV, except Atsumu doesn’t think he’s ever been able to tell what Osamu is thinking or feeling, no more than he’s actively told. Those hooded eyes are too much like his own. He can never quite figure them out.

“I don’t know about that,” Osamu says. “I think you would be a bad winner too.”

Atsumu rolls his eyes at him, trying not to feel the tug of something in his chest. “Wow, thanks.”

Osamu shrugs. “You’re welcome.”

A few moments of silence pass between them. The sky is still bright and wide, but Atsumu can hear a small rumbling in the distance, as birds start to pass over their heads with warning cries. The amount of people mingling in the park is getting smaller—families are packing up their picnic baskets, teenagers are checking their phones and leaving, children are running off to collect their kites and balls and games. It’s going to rain very, very soon now. It makes his tongue heavy. 

Finally, Atsumu groans. “You’re going to make me ask what you mean by that, aren’t you?”

Osamu looks askance at him, looking way too pleased with himself, and hugs his legs to his chest before tipping his head back to answer. “I meant,” he says, enunciating every word carefully, “that you’re a bad loser because you’re never ever going to be happy when you lose. And you’ll be a bad winner because when you do win, you won’t even be _happy._ You’ll just want to win more.”

Atsumu opens his mouth, then closes it again. His hands tighten into fists next to him, pulling at strands of grass, fingernails scraping the earth. “Of course I’ll be happy,” he answers, softly, but he doesn’t know who he’s trying to convince. “ _Of_ _course_ I will.”

He doesn’t want to admit his brother is right. Ironically enough, it would feel like a defeat.

One time, Coach asked him if he would like to give some sort of inspirational speech to their team before the match. He and Osamu had been playing volleyball for less than a year, but it was sort of an unspoken rule, even by then, that it was better to open up space for the Miya twins before they took it for themselves. 

Whatever. Atsumu never cared much for the reputation that precedes him. But Coach asked, even though he wasn’t team captain nor vice-captain, and he said yes, because why wouldn’t he? She didn’t ask _Osamu_ to speak. She said _Atsumu_ and looked at _him,_ because _he_ was the one she was looking for, and not his brother. You don’t notice how good it feels to be upheld as your own person until you are. Osamu and Atsumu have never been interchangeable. It just takes the world a little more time to figure that out.

So when the day of the match came, Atsumu walked into the locker room with his arms crossed and head held high, taking a sweeping look at each and every one of his teammates. His brother stared back at him, with the number 5 in the front of his uniform glaring at him, and those half-lidded eyes halfway to a smirk, because they’ve always both known. 

Osamu has been the team’s starting setter ever since they started. Atsumu hasn’t. Very few things make Atsumu’s stomach gnaw like this. 

At school, even though they can technically point out what position they would like to play as, the team manager and coach have the final say. And when they chose Osamu to be setter instead, they didn’t say it was because he was better than Atsumu; Coach Himiko would never put “the siblings”—as she likes to call them—at odds with each other, bless her heart. But they didn’t have to say it for it to be true. 

(In fourth grade, they’re invited to a volleyball workshop just a few ways outside their hometown. It was held and organized by Inarizaki High, their prefecture’s leading school when it comes to volleyball, and Atsumu is so excited to go he feels his heart might pump right out of his chest. He skips into the gym, already packed with kids younger and older than him, and takes a moment to just let his feet squeak against the glossy wood of the court. He might be ten years old and be more scraped knees and missing teeth than a boy, but still—it’s like being alive twice. 

A ball flies too close to his head, and he’s only not hit because Osamu pulls him back. Before Atsumu can hear the scolding of why he should be paying more attention, a new voice says, _Oh my God, are you okay?_

Aran Ojiro is a full head taller than both of them, all honey-brown eyes and smooth dark skin, and he apologizes so profusely that it makes even their mother flustered. He’s a fifth grader—only one year older than them—but Atsumu thinks he might be the coolest person in the whole world. He asks them what positions they play in, and his face lights up in such a way when Atsumu says he’s also an outside hitter that it almost makes him sad to say the next thing. Almost.

_My brother is a setter,_ Atsumu says, pointing at Osamu, who’s only half paying attention to the conversation. _But_ I _want to be the setter._

But Aran doesn’t look upset at all. He just blinks at him, once, twice, and then breaks into a toothy smile. _Well,_ he says, messing up Atsumu’s hair with his knuckles. _Don’t forget that hunger, then._

Coolest person in the world. But Atsumu wouldn’t say that out loud.)

Atsumu looked at his brother for a moment too long, and then back at the team. He said just one word: “Win.”

Then he turned around and left the locker room, motioning for the rest of the boys to follow him. They won.

Say what you want about Atsumu, but he’s always enjoyed his theatrics.

Instead of saying any of that, Atsumu pulls himself upright, stomping his feet a little to shake off the numbness of having been sat down for too long. “I wouldn’t say I’m a bad loser,” he says. “Maybe I’m a sore one. Because when I lose it hurts. Ya get that?”

Osamu makes no move to sit up, instead blinking up at him. “It hurts?” he asks. “Where?”

Atsumu shrugs, making an all-encompassing motion with his hand. “I dunno. In the back of my throat.”

“Sure,” Osamu says, voice flat, and then reaches out his hands so Atsumu can help and pull him up. “We probably have, like,” he looks up at the rapidly-darkening sky, the air so thick with storm it tastes like an old coin, “ten minutes at most to do the laps if we don’t want to get drenched.”

“Eh, who cares about getting drenched?” Atsumu says, flashing his brother a grin. “Race you!”

He takes off running to the dirt path beneath the trees, which circles a medium-sized duck lake in which no ducks are ever present. All in all, a full lap is barely enough to make even a dent in both of their staminas, so they always pick a number between two and ten at the beginning of each week to see how many they’ll run. Usually they forget about it within two days and just run until their legs give out, and that’s why Atsumu doesn’t believe it for a second when adults say that Osamu is very mature for his age; when it comes to moments like these, they’re exactly the same.

There’s a reason why Osamu always ends up winning the races: because he runs to keep ahead of Atsumu, and Atsumu races to win. Only one of them won’t settle for less than absolutely everything. 

Some people are just like that, his mother says. If there isn’t a war, they’ll start one.

Atsumu doesn’t want no war. His hands are just itching for something to have. Hunger, in childhood, is as natural as breathing for kids like him.

And it’s not that Atsumu isn’t like anyone else at all. It’s that he’s too much of everyone else. He has his mother’s eyes and his father’s smile and his brother’s face; he’s the empty stomach of every kid flying too high on a swing, and the sound of a ball hitting the gym floor again and again and again and again. He’s so much of it all that he’s bursting at the seams.

He wins this race in the end, tumbling to the ground in his haste to complete his fifth lap just as thunder rumbles and the sky begins to crack open. Osamu makes two displeased sounds in quick succession—first at losing, second at the cold water quickly soaking them both, and Atsumu cackles, breathless, the rapidly forming mud cool against his cheek. He tastes earth in his mouth for weeks.

**ii.**

Once, when Atsumu was a kid, he stayed with his grandmother while Osamu had to go to the hospital and get his tonsils removed. She was a quiet, peaceful lady, born and raised in the deep countryside of Hyogo, never straying too close to the city. _I’d know I’d gone too far when I could see the city line,_ was her favorite anecdote to tell. _When the night sky started going all sorts of colors_ _—_ _all sickly green and dusty orange, even way past midnight_ _—_ _I’d know it was time to make my way back home._

They were as close as a grandmother and her grandson could be, which is to say they only really understood each other when they were making food together. It’s the reason why Osamu always got along with her better than Atsumu did; they spoke a separate language with the kneading of dough, the sprinkling of flour and the sizzling sound of onions on olive oil. Atsumu didn’t mind it all that much. It’s one of the many things kids take for granted.

In those days, it was a common sight for the afternoon to find them sitting on the floor of the living room, enjoying each other’s silence. She didn’t have a TV, so Atsumu spent his time either practicing tosses in the backyard, or listlessly roaming through the pages of a comic book, not really absorbing anything but the bright colors. Grandmother would sit across from him with her back very straight and eyes very kind, rummaging through boxes of one belonging or another. It was never the same one, in all the four days he spent in her house: once it was a reddish-brown with silver details, then another a deep black with golden flowers, or bone white with colorful ornament on the cover. She never showed him what she was looking at. Just ran her fingers over whatever she found and then put it back, too quietly for him to even guess what it could be. 

But once, she said, “You should know that in every object there is a being in pain, little fox. I wanted to tell you that before I forgot.”

Atsumu squinted at her, startled out of his very intense staring contest with the floor. “What do you mean, Sobo-chan?”

“Well, I don’t mean pain as necessarily a bad thing,” she said, running a hand over the sides of the box she was going through. Her nails were always painted red, and in the falling gloom of the afternoon, they looked almost black. “But the memory of fingers. A smell. A voice. Everyone and everything carries something like that with them through their whole lives. A sort of itch you can’t quite scratch off. A sort of itch you shouldn’t scratch off. Everyone is in some sort of pain, but most times they don’t really figure out what it is.”

“Uh,” Atsumu said, ever eloquently. “That’s very sad.”

She looked at him with old, old eyes. “Yes, Atsumu-chan,” she answered. “It’s very, very sad.”

After a moment of deliberation, he asked, without looking at her, “Can that pain be _anything?_ ”

He felt more than heard her smile. “Yes, it can.”

“Can it be hunger?”

When Atsumu looked up, her eyes were almost like embers. If he said just the right thing, he thought, it would set her ablaze. 

“Maybe,” was all she answered. Atsumu only nodded, and went back to his comic book. It took his grandmother a few minutes to go back to what she was doing before—in those minutes, he’s absolutely sure she just stared at the top of his head, unblinking—and the conversation was over. 

Atsumu still thinks about it from time to time. He’d like to write it off as the kind of weird shit that kids end up saying when they’re too young to understand what words mean when they’re pressed together, but he’s no fool. Every story has to start somewhere, he muses, walking to the back of the court for his serve. Maybe that was it.

One, two, three, four steps. Float serve.

It hits the net.

Suna groans so loudly you’d think he’d just found out his wallet had been stolen, or something. From the other side of the net, Osamu mouths _You suck,_ and Atsumu kind of wants to punch his teeth in. 

“Don’t mind, don’t mind,” says Kita, shaking his head at Atsumu with a small smile. “We can still win. They’re only ahead by one point.”

In Atsumu’s opinion, _don’t mind_ is the stupidest possible sentence to ever come out of volleyball, because he _does_ mind quite a lot, thank you, but he would also rather chew his own foot than talk back to Kita-san, so he says nothing.

He does call Osamu a conniving piece of shit when the rotation changes and they’re close enough to hear each other, just so he can see his eyes fire up and face flush in anger, but before Atsumu can ever brace himself for the oncoming expletives from his brother’s mouth, they both catch Suna’s eye, and he’s making a cutting-throat motion with his hand. Predictably, when Atsumu turns around, Kita is staring at them both with an impassive expression on his face, his hand half raised in position for his serve.

If anyone asks, _Osamu’s_ voice cracked when they both called out _Sorry, Kita-san._ Prove him wrong. 

Ever since Kita became captain, their training regime has been pretty set in stone, in a way that feels comfortable for Atsumu. Their official practice time is three times a week, with the supervision of the team coach and manager, but Kita has enough leeway with the teachers to have been allowed nearly free reign of the court whenever it’s not being used, so they’re practicing most days of the week, except for the weekends. Scrimmages on Tuesdays and Thursdays, followed by either serving or spiking drills, as well as practice matches every Friday. The other days are meant for them to practice whatever they think needs perfecting, as long as they all clean up the gym afterwards and don’t make too much noise.

At the beginning of the year, Aran asked him if he thought they’d make it to Nationals this year. “It can be more nerve-wracking for first years to go out there, that’s for sure and certain,” he’d said. “Tokyo is way too big of a place for us country folk. But you’re a second year now, and this is my last year. Feels like something’s chewing away at my lungs.”

“Situation must be pretty dire if you’re asking me for comfort,” Atsumu had answered. He’d forgotten he wasn’t a first year anymore, so he didn’t have to clear up the gym, and he wasn’t sure what to do with his hands. “C’mere, Aran-san, lay your head on the couch. Tell me what’s goin’ on with ya. I’m sure all the problems lead back to your father.”

Aran had let out that warm, deep laugh of his. “Sure, sure, keep teasing me,” he’d said. “But really? You’re not nervous at all?”

“Why would I be nervous?” Atsumu asked. “We’re going to win.”

Aran is the kind of person that smiles like he can’t help himself, but never once has Atsumu found it to be anything less than completely genuine. It’s kind of infuriating.

Atsumu’s team wins the practice match, because _fuck_ you, and Atsumu makes a point to keep making smug faces at Osamu for the rest of the day. He’s not particularly proud of the win, actually — it was a pretty standard three on three: him, Suna and Kita against Osamu, Aran and Akagi. Kita usually insists on putting Suna and Aran on opposite teams, because Suna is ridiculously good at blocking, and Aran is ridiculously good at spiking _over_ blocks, so it’s amusing to watch them glowering at each other. Osamu and Atsumu are also always against each other, “Because it’s funny to see them bicker” (as said by Suna), “So I can have some peace of mind,” (as said by Kita), and because Ginjima is superstitious enough to believe that they can read each other’s minds, so it would be unfair to the other team. 

Atsumu wanted to laugh until he cried when he heard that, but Aran whacked him over the head and hissed a “Don’t you _dare,_ ” at him, so he didn’t. He may be an asshole, as Osamu says, but at least he’s a domesticated one, also as Osamu says. 

Since it’s an unofficial practice day, they have time to kill inside the gym until the school starts to close up, and none of them really want to leave. Atsumu knows he’s not exactly an agreeable person, and he clashes with his teammates more often than not, but it’s in moments like this that make him want to keep playing forever—when Kita-san whistles to call their attention and say that practice is over, and all of them immediately move to the benches and sit down on and around it, either getting a head start on their homework or just killing time next to each other. It’s nice.

They stay silent for a while. Aran is muttering over his history project while Suna periodically sneaks pictures of his increasingly worried expression, and he’s pretty sure Osamu is playing Candy Crush, if the frustrated set of his mouth and twinkling sounds of his phone is any telling. Kita is completing his post-practice ritual of organizing everything in the storage room, while a couple first years are swabbing the gym floor. Atsumu pulls out a blank notebook from his backpack and starts sketching a few swirling lines with his pen, with no particular objective in mind.

Then, Suna says, as if he’d been steeling himself, “If no one’s gonna say it, I will. Miya, what the _fuck_ is up with your hair?”

Both Atsumu and Osamu turn to look at him, and Suna looks like he wants to die a little.

“We did say we were going to dye it,” Osamu says, already turning back to look at his phone. 

“We never said what color,” Atsumu pointed out, tapping the end of his pen against his temple.

Aran doesn’t look up from his furious scribbling. “I have to say the whole pink and purple thing was…unexpected.”

“You mean beautiful,” Atsumu corrects.

“I really don’t,” Aran says. “At least we won’t ever get you two mixed up in court again.”

Suna makes a face at them. “It’s no use making fun of you when you look so _proud_ of yourself,” he says. “It’s sickening.”

Atsumu puts a hand against his chest. “Aw, Suna, you charmer.”

“Fuck off and die.”

“It’s not like it’s permanent,” Osamu cuts in, before they can keep going. “It’s for our Halloween costume. We’ll change it up to something more acceptable before Nationals, don’t worry about it.”

If anything, Suna looks even more disgusted. “For your Halloween costume,” he echoes. “We’re in Japan, and it’s _August._ ”

Osamu looks him dead in the eye. “You say that like it matters.”

Now Aran looks up, frowning a little. “You’re gonna dye your hair again after this? It’ll fall off.”

“Knock on some fuckin’ wood, Aran-san,” Atsumu says. “And anyways, it’s a great Halloween costume. The greatest. Y’all want a snippet?”

“Absolutely not,” Suna says.

“You have got to be kidding me,” Osamu mutters, stuffing his phone into his pocket, game forgotten. Aran only shrugs.

Atsumu stands up with a flourish, making sure the timing of what he’s planned out in his head stays on point. Theatrics, he says. “Prepare for trouble,” he says, striking a pose.

Aran sighs. “Osamu, please tell him to—,” he starts, but Osamu cuts him off by standing up with a barely concealed eye roll, before getting into position next to Atsumu and knotting their arms together. Sometimes he really loves his brother, okay?

“And make it double,” Osamu completes, with the flattest voice Atsumu’s ever heard from him, which is an impressive feat.

“No _fucking_ way,” Suna says, and Aran instinctively whacks him in the back of the head. 

It doesn’t deter him from giggling like a maniac, his eyes crinkling so badly they’re almost closed. He opens his mouth repeatedly and seems on the edge of asking something, but always falls back laughing again, to the point where he’s kind of wheezing. Osamu lets go of Atsumu as if it’s burned him, and flops back down to the floor, leaning against Aran’s legs. 

“Thank you for that, dearest brother,” Atsumu drawls, running a hand through his (pink) hair. 

“You’re welcome, asshole,” Osamu says. “Mom’s out of town so dinner’s on you tonight.”

Atsumu makes a face at him. “You say that as if you're supposed to be benefiting from it in any way. You’ll just end up insulting my cooking after ten minutes and then do it all yourself.” Osamu doesn’t answer, because it’s true. Before Atsumu can sit back down again, Aran waves at him, wildly gesticulating to a still wheezing Suna.

“You’re already standing up,” Aran pleads. “Please go get some water for him. His blood pressure’s gonna _drop._ ”

Atsumu rolls his eyes, but he’s not about to say no to his senpai, so he picks up Suna’s water bottle from his backpack and saunters off to the water fountain inside the locker room. It’s mid-afternoon now, and the sun sets through this side of the building, so the whole room looks like it’s melting between yellow and red, the shadows of the lockers so dark they’re like the absence of space itself. It’s one of the reasons why he loathes the idea of ever ending up living in a city. Cities don’t get sunlight as sweet as this, not in a million years. People from there wouldn’t understand what Atsumu means when he says it tastes like burnt orange. 

In the back corner of the room is Kita, already out of his training uniform and sitting on the bench with his head tilted up to the window. He looks so calm he could almost be asleep. Atsumu will never understand people who can just stay still like that. He’s sure they were built different.

He’s loath to disturb him, but he kind of has to pass over Kita’s legs to get to the water fountain, so it’s not really his fault. He tries to be quiet about it, but Kita’s built-in Miya sense seems to kick in the moment he takes a step, and his eyes snap open to look at him. 

“Sorry,” Atsumu says, as sheepishly as he can manage. “Picking up some water for Suna-kun. Don’t mind me.”

Kita looks amused. “Outta the goodness of your own heart?”

“Ya know me,” Atsumu says, winking, as he walks the rest of the way. “Nicest fella in town.”

Kita just watches him, and Atsumu doesn’t see any need to fill the room with chatter. Kita is the kind of person whose silence is just as important as their noise, mostly because he seems content to just sit and be quiet while the world unfolds and he moves through it. It seems like a toothless existence, from Atsumu’s perspective. People like that never bite into anything. Then, not everyone is looking to tear things apart like Atsumu is, or so he’s told. 

“You okay there, cap’tn?” Atsumu asks, when the silence stretches long enough to make him jittery. “You’ve been more contemplative than usual since you got the jersey.”

Kita shrugs. “I’m happy.”

It’s such a simple thing to say. He does so with no inflection at all, soft-spoken and earnest, as if those two words haven’t been making people bleed since the beginning of everything. As if Atsumu’s hands weren’t itching. As if his stomach weren’t gnawing.

“That’s cool,” he says. 

“A good friend told me that sometimes you don’t need a reason to feel what you’re feeling,” Kita continues, tilting his head. Somehow, it always seems like he’s seeing right through him. “If it makes ya happy, then it makes ya happy.”

Atsumu feels his lips twitch. “Sounds like the kind of thing my Auntie would say.”

“It was Aran,” Kita concedes. 

“Close enough.”

Atsumu closes the tap and twists the bottle cap, the cold plastic biting into his palms. He isn’t an awkward person by any measures, but Kita just has that effect of making him feel like a bumbling junior high kid, still tripping over his two feet while doing a run up for a spike. He doesn’t like the feeling, but there’s little he can do.

Kita stretches his arms behind him, still looking intently at Atsumu. “I know it’s still very early,” he says, “but you’re a second year now. The final decision will be between you and the other guys in your year, but I just wanted you to know—if I had to pick someone to be the next captain, it would be you.”

_That_ startles him so much he actually drops the water bottle, and he’s wildly aware of the flush in his face as he bends down to pick it up. He tries to calm his somersaulting heart, blinking a little to make sure he heard correctly. He won’t ask Kita if he’s sure, because that would be as redundant as asking the sun not to set; the guy has a cold kind of logic, and he never wastes a word he doesn’t mean. If he said that he wants — _Atsumu_ to be _captain,_ it’s because he believes it, even though Atsumu has no idea why in the world he would.

In a way, the most expected thing about his own reaction is the surprise. He hadn’t realized how much he expected Osamu to end up with the number one jersey until confronted with the fact that he might not; he knows how much people tend to look over at his brother before glancing at Atsumu, be it because Osamu does radiate older brother energy, or because the way their personalities are. It doesn’t bother him. Of course it doesn’t. He’s self aware enough to know he’s not the most pleasant person to be around, but if there’s one thing that he trusts himself with is volleyball. So it’s kind of a contradiction, inside his own chest—the feeling of rejection by a decision he’d assumed would happen, because he never considered the possibility of it not happening. It’s strange. Atsumu isn’t used to feeling wobbly like this.

Kita rests his chin on his hand, tilting his head like a fox who heard a noise in the distance. “You seem surprised,” he comments. Not asking for an explanation, but merely stating a fact. “I figured you would be. I’ve watched you and your brother long enough. Are you the eldest?”

Atsumu kicks at the ground with the tip of his shoe, softly. “Yeah.”

Kita nods, as if that answered a bigger question than the one he’d asked. Then his eyes sharpen, and the yellow and red of the afternoon feel molten. Atsumu’s neck prickles with sweat.

“You know what the kanji in your name means, right?” Kita asks. Atsumu settles down on the bench across from him, trying not to look like he’s ready to bolt at wherever this conversation is going.

“Yeah,” he says. “My Mama takes this whole naming thing very seriously, so she told us when we were old enough to understand. Mine means ‘urge to eat,’ or something. Figures ‘Samu would be the one who ended up loving food more than he loves volleyball. Ya know he says one of his biggest worries is not being able to figure out what he would like to have for his last meal on Earth, right?”

Kita smiles. “We all do,” he says. “But that’s not really what I’m getting at. There’s more than one kind of hunger, you know.”

He doesn’t really understand what Kita-san means, but something tastes heavy and sweet on his tongue, which is his body’s way of saying that he absolutely does now. Of course he does. They’re speaking the same language right now, aren’t they?

“Well, if you want to interpret it,” Kita continues, even though Atsumu didn’t answer. “Metaphorically speaking—someone who cannot satisfy their hunger. Pretty.” His gaze is still assessing, but softer. “And that’s why I would pick you, Atsumu. Because you walk out into that court, and you win. Because if you pretend to love enough people you will never go to bed hungry, but you ask yourself, _Why the hell would I want to stop feeling like this?”_

Atsumu’s mouth is dry, but he manages to crack a small smile. “Sure you weren’t a philosopher in your past life, Kita-san?”

“What I was in my past life has no place in what I am now,” Kita answers easily, as if he’s reciting something from a book. “What then?”

“What then what?” Atsumu asks. “The hunger or the love?”

Kita tuts. “Now, what kind of senpai would I be if I told you the answer?” Then he nudges his head at the door, and Atsumu knows a dismissal when he sees one. “Think on it. Now run along—I’m sure Suna-kun has already died of dehydration twice over.”

He leaves with a small and hurried bow, because he had definitely forgotten why he’d ended up in the locker room in the first place. After that warmth, the rest of the gym seems too harsh and impersonal, and he has to squint a little to get used with the light again. 

(He feels scraped raw. Kita’s words are still tugging at the back of his throat.

_Why the hell would I want to stop feeling like this?)_

Atsumu walks back onto the court with his heart in his hands and lightning in his head. To the others who were waiting for him, he probably looks the same as he always does. How do you tell apart a person like Atsumu from the hollowing in his stomach? How can you tell where it hurts?

“How difficult is it to get some water?” Aran asks no one in particular, pinching the bridge of his nose.

Atsumu gasps. “Did he die?”

Suna, who is decidedly not dead, just beet-red and teary eyed, glares at him. “In your dreams, asshole.”

“See if I do you a favor again,” Atsumu quips back, tossing the bottle over to him, who catches it in the air. Suna glares one more time for good measure before chugging it down.

“Hey, ‘Tsumu,” Osamu says, without looking up from his phone. From the way he’s frowning, it looks like a really difficult level. “We can’t keep the hair.”

Atsumu flops down to the floor across from him. “Why the hell not?”

Osamu shrugs. “Suna feels personally victimized by it.”

“Suna doesn’t feel personally victimized by shit,” Atsumu says. “He’s just a killjoy.”

“Language,” Aran says half-heartedly. 

Suna stops chugging the water for long enough to clap his hands, calling the attention of everyone who’s still in the gym. “Attention, campers,” he calls out. “Raise your hand if you’ve ever felt personally victimized by the Miya twins.”

Atsumu doesn’t need to look around to know that everyone has their hands raised, because his team is made up of a bunch of backstabbing little shits, and Aran. Who is definitely also raising his hand, but trying to pretend that he’s not. 

Osamu looks Atsumu dead in the eye. “We’re not keeping the hair. Back to the first color pick.”

Atsumu lets out a long-suffering sigh. “Fine. But _I_ keep the gold. And for the record, I hate all of you, _personally._ ”

Osamu goes to pat him on the shoulder, but he isn’t looking, so he misses and ends up patting his collarbone instead. “There, there,” he says. “We know.”

Atsumu does keep the gold. After dinner—he was right; Osamu makes him drop everything within five minutes, but they don’t have enough ingredients for onigiri, so they order pizza—they sit down next to each other on their back porch, and the night is a soft and gentle murmur all around them. 

“Do you think you’ve found the thing you want to keep doing until you die?” Atsumu asks, eyes half closed.

He hesitates. Not too long, but long enough for Atsumu to notice. Then, very quietly, Osamu says, “Yeah. I think I have.”

“Me too.”

Atsumu knows his brother better than he knows anyone else in the world. That doesn’t stop him from feeling, from time to time, like he’s sitting next to a complete stranger.

(The twins found their answer, but it wasn’t the same.

Who would’ve thought?)

  
  


**iii.**

Atsumu is not nervous. 

He drums his fingers against the table again, before catching himself and forcing his hand into a fist. Nope. Definitely not.

He hasn’t even been waiting for that long. They agreed to meet five minutes from now, which means Atsumu is early, because Kita-san, in spite of everything, ended up rubbing off on him. It’s the period of time in the day when a diner like this isn’t that full, but he still had to look for a bit to find the sort of booth he wanted—closer to the door than he would like, but still with enough space for two people and pressed against the window. The last one is not so Atsumu can keep watch to see if he’s coming. Absolutely not.

There’s no one here to keep the pretense up for, other than that waitress who keeps eyeing him uneasily (she definitely thinks he’s the kind of guy who’s about to get stood up on a date, oh _God_ ), but Atsumu still resists the urge of putting his hands over his face and screaming. He deserves a medal for holding out this long.

_If Aran were there,_ Atsumu thinks, sadly, _he would have stopped me._

It’s his own fault for having the guy who’s graduating as his impulse control. He has to find someone else to blame now, and he’ll probably have to end up choosing one of his _kouhais,_ as much as the idea genuinely disgusts him — Suna would take too much delight on watching him crash and burn, and Atsumu is _not_ thinking about Osamu right now.

It’s fine.

_When you’re eighty years old, and have the confidence to say that you were happier than me_ _—_

No.

Atsumu runs his fingers through his hair, and checks the time on his phone again. There’s an unanswered call from his mother, and he shoots her a quick text to tell her where he is. He knows she’s nervous about letting him roam the “big city” all alone, but he’s turning eighteen in a couple months, and he can handle himself. Tokyo might be dizzying and a bit exhilarating, but between the train and Google Maps, he’s gotten to where he needed to be each time. 

Now, you ask—what is Miya Atsumu, starting setter and recently appointed captain of the Inarizaki High volleyball club, doing in Tokyo, just a few weeks before the new school year starts?

The first answer was that he was already in the city for future-related businesses (all the best volleyball teams in the country have their main offices located somewhere here, so it was no dice; he may have gotten some offers and interest shown in, but nothing would get moving if he didn’t come to them.) The second answer—

“Miya-san!”

Even without the enthusiastic waving and slight jumping up and down, Atsumu would have seen Hinata Shouyou coming from a mile away. If the bright orange hair isn’t a tell, the bright smile on his face as he approaches the booth is almost enough to rival it. In spite of himself, Atsumu feels his lips pulling into an answering smile.

“Well, look who the cat dragged in,” he drawls, leaning forward on the table, because he’s an asshole. “The oncoming storm.”

Hinata tilts his head a little, likely taking what Atsumu said at face value. “Well, you were the one who invited me, Miya-san,” he says, earnestly.

Atsumu is not flushing. “Details,” he says, making a welcoming motion with his hand to the booth in front of him. “And you can call me Atsumu. Miya-san is my brother.”

Hinata slides into the booth, flashing the waitress nearby (who now has a relieved yet knowing look on her face) a small smile, and props his elbows on the table, resting his chin on his hands. “It’s nice to see you again, Atsumu-san!” he exclaims, sounding so genuine it winds Atsumu a little. He knows a lot of people who leave their problems and rivalries on the court, but Hinata looks like the sort of person who doesn’t even know what the word animosity means. It’s sort of endearing. “I hope there aren’t any hard feelings about Nationals,” Hinata continues. “I mean, I ended up friends with all the teams I played against, but you never know.”

“No hard feelings at all,” Atsumu assures him, scratching at his neck sheepishly. “We played a good game. Bet ya didn’t think you’d see me outside of a court so soon, yeah?”

Hinata shakes his head, eyes widening. “I didn’t, no! I’ve also kind of been dying to know why you wanted to meet up with me? It’s lucky that we ended up in Tokyo at the same time—it’s a twelve hour drive from Miyagi to Hyogo, can you imagine? I would crawl out of my _skin._ ” 

He smiles brightly, and Atsumu is opening up his mouth to ask how come he was in Tokyo too in the first place when Hinata’s eyes widen impossibly further and he starts waving his hands in front of Atsumu’s face, his own cheeks growing red. “I don’t mean it as a rude thing!” he yelps. “Not like oh, why did _he_ call me here, but like oh, why _did_ he call me here? And I also wanted to know how you got my number. I’m pretty sure I didn’t give it to you, and Kageyama told me you asked him, but he also said that if you two were the last people on Earth, and you were on fire, and he had a glass of water, he would drink it.”

“Oh,” Atsumu says, feeling slightly dazed. “That’s—nice?”

“He doesn’t mean it in a rude way,” Hinata assures him. “Or not more than normal. He’s rude to everyone.”

“I’ll take your word for it,” Atsumu answers, smiling. “Shall we order something?”

They end up with two milkshakes and a portion of onigiris between them, as well as promises to squabble later about who’s going to pay. Atsumu stilts his way through the story of how he ended up acquiring Hinata’s number—Kita-san made a point to acquire the number of all the captains they play against, so Atsumu had to go through the mortifying ordeal of texting Karasuno’s captain (or former captain), Sawamura Daichi, and asking for it. He definitely did not expect what felt like a forty-five minute long shovel talk, in which Sawamura made him promise on his mother’s grave that he wouldn’t use the number for any “funny business,” but each to their own. Crows are apparently very protective of their young ones. 

Hinata laughs at all the right moments, and makes undignified squawks about Daichi’s dad mode, then immediately launches into a retelling of the top five moments in which he and the other first years—second years, now—managed to set him off.

It’s nice. Nice enough that nearly two hours later, Atsumu has nearly forgotten why he was nervous at all. Hinata is just so easy to talk to, and he doesn’t seem to expect anything else from Atsumu other than the company he was promised, which is—

Atsumu doesn’t know what it is. It makes him feel like sunlight. 

“You talk a lot, don’t’cha?” Atsumu asks before he can stop himself, while Hinata is busy taking large gulps of his chocolate milkshake in between anecdotes.

Hinata’s face falls a little, but he quickly brightens again, if a little dismayed. “Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to annoy you.”

“No, no!” Atsumu says, so forcefully it startles them both. Hinata ends up with ice cream on his nose. “You’re fine,” he insists, lowering his voice to an acceptable volume. “I was just commenting. I guess I should’a seen it coming, but we’d never really talked before, so I was just pointing it out.”

“Oh,” Hinata says, nodding his head. He scratches his cheek and ends up smearing more ice cream over his face, and it makes Atsumu’s lips twitch. “I guess that makes sense. I almost forgot this is, like, the first time we’re hanging out together! It doesn’t feel like that at _all._ ”

“It doesn’t,” Atsumu agrees. “Do all friendships start like this?”

He did not mean to say the last part. Something about how comfortably Hinata is talking to him is messing up his filter.

Hinata frowns. “You don’t know?”

Atsumu feels his face grow warm. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed,” he says, scratching the back of his neck, “but I’m not very experienced in the whole making friends thing.”

Hinata looks bewildered at that. “But you seem to get along so well with Osamu-san! And when we played together, the whole band went quiet for your serves, so I figured you had friends there, too.”

Atsumu rolls his eyes, trying not to feel deeply uncomfortable by this line of questioning. “Great,” he drawls. “My best friend is my twin brother, who literally has no choice, and some band kids who are afraid of jocks.”

It’s as close to a confession as he’ll ever get. Atsumu is a lot of things, and he seems to be a thousand more, but here’s the thing: if you tell a child it can do absolutely anything, or that they can’t do anything at all, you will in all likelihood be proven right. And Atsumu has been told many times that if he just gives it his all, he’ll become something great—but no one’s bothered to tell him what he’s supposed to be before that happens. What were we before we were we? How do you keep your life from feeling like just a never-ending prologue for the beginning of it?

But Hinata doesn’t look phased at all. He just nods his head and bites at his metal straw a little before answering. “Well, my sister is my best friend,” he says, very seriously. “She’s also six, so if she wasn’t my best friend it would break her heart, but I can’t think of anyone better. Siblings, you know? There’s no shame in it.”

“Yeah,” Atsumu mutters. “Siblings.”

_If she wasn’t my best friend, it would break her heart._

Atsumu starts drumming his fingers on the tabletop.

Osamu’s voice is echoing in his head again. _When you’re eighty, and have the confidence to say you were happier than me_ _—_ _then that time, make fun of me._

_Great,_ his own voice answers. _When you’re dead, I’ll tell you, ‘See? I was happier than you_ . _’_

Then suddenly there’s a hand on his and he jumps, knees hitting the underside of the table and shaking the mostly-eaten meal on top of it. Hinata is looking at him with eyes very wide and very brown, his hand hovering over Atsumu’s knuckles, as if he isn’t sure if he should rest it there after the initial reaction. 

Now he’s embarrassed himself. Finally, something that seems to go according to plan.

“Atsumu-san,” Hinata says, softly. “You and Osamu-san had a fight, didn’t you?”

Atsumu chuckles, but there’s no mirth in it. “That obvious?”

Hinata tilts his head, like he’s considering the answer. “Yes,” he says.

This time the smile comes easier. “Figures you’d be the say it like you see it kind.” Atsumu hits his knuckles gently against Hinata’s palms, letting him know it’s okay to touch. “And don’t mind, Shouyou-kun. ‘Samu and I fight all the time. Cain instinct and all that.”

“The Cain instinct doesn’t leave you looking like that,” Hinata says, making an all-encompassing motion at Atsumu.

Atsumu raises an eyebrow. “Are you insulting me?”

“You’re changing the subject,” Hinata says, unyielding. 

He deflates a little. “You didn’t come here to hear me whine about my problems,” he tries to say, but Hinata starts booing him before he can finish. And every time he tries to open his mouth to protest, Hinata starts booing again, so eventually Atsumu just says, “Okay, okay, I’ll tell.” 

He takes a deep breath. Closes his eyes. Then, very quietly, he goes, “You know what you said about how if your sister weren’t your best friend, it would break her heart?” Hinata nods. Atsumu nods in tandem, rubbing at his eye with his free hand. “It sort of feels like that,” he says. “It sort of feels like that.”

Atsumu and Osamu have fought, and they have fought a lot. It’s only expected when you share a life with someone from day dot, when you have never known life without or outside each other. They live for pushing each other’s limits—where Osamu is a natural, Atsumu practices until his fingers bleed; for every mile they run, they dare each other to do one more, and one more, and one more. But at the end of the day, Atsumu and Osamu are not the same person. And even though it’s been years since Atsumu was the first to point out that they don’t look nothing alike—he forgot. 

“Osamu ain’t gonna keep playing volleyball after high school,” Atsumu tells Hinata. “And I’m going pro. ‘S why I’m here in Tokyo. Figuring out some stuff.”

“And that makes you sad,” Hinata says. “Why?”

It doesn’t sound accusatory. It doesn’t sound like he expects anything at all. So, Atsumu says, “I have to figure out how to be a person on my own now.”

And Hinata’s eyes look like lightning.

Their hands are still joined together. None of them make a move to change that. 

“I get that,” Hinata mutters, glancing out the window. The sun is still high out, but the city air makes it dimmer than it should be.

“How do you manage it?” Atsumu asks, trying not to feel too pathetic, but whatever. He’s already come this far. He thinks he can handle being pathetic in front of Hinata.

“I don’t know,” Hinata answers, honestly. “But I think that if there’s anyone that can figure it out, it’s you, Atsumu-kun.”

Atsumu licks his lips. His mouth feels dry. “You are way too wise for your years, Shouyou.”

Hinata brightens, and the lightning in his eyes dissipates like a summer storm. “Eldest child complex,” he says. “Boom.”

Atsumu raises his hand for a fist bump. “Boom,” he agrees.

Hinata’s jaw drops. “No way. You’re the older one?”

“By two and a half minutes.”

“No way!”

In the end, they have to be ushered out from the establishment by that same all-knowing waitress, because they start making too much noise. They walk aimlessly through the streets for a while, both too unaccustomed to a city as big as Tokyo, and Atsumu is glad that if he has to look like a tourist, what with the backpack that by now is permanently attached to his body and the bewilderment and the sheer amount of people walking around, he doesn’t have to do it alone. Hinata stops him not once, not twice, but three times to point at a transmission tower and ask if it’s the Tokyo Skytree, which makes Atsumu feel like he’s maybe missing out on a joke. They end up buying one too many souvenirs for their friends back home—Hinata is an awful enabler; it’s something out of Aran-san’s worst nightmares—and stocking up on junk food so they can eat it together while sitting on a bench in a public green space, which can barely be called that at all. 

Atsumu learns that the reason why Hinata is in the city is complicated, embarrassing, and annoyingly endearing. Apparently one of his best friends has been looking forward to the release of a particular videogame, and since Miyagi doesn’t have a proper electronics store for Hinata to buy it for his birthday, he somehow managed to convince his mother to let him come check it out in Tokyo.

“I could have bought it online,” Hinata acquiesces, his mouth stained with red sugar. “But then I couldn’t be sure if it was the right one, and if it weren’t I know Kenma wouldn’t say anything ‘cause he wouldn’t want to bother me. So I figured it would be better to come over here, buy it, and then give it to him as an early birthday present when we have our first practice match of the term.”

“Isn’t this Kenma the setter for Nekoma?” Atsumu asks. “Isn’t Nekoma in Tokyo? Why don’t you just buy it and then just give it to him while you’re still here?”

Hinata shrugs. “Kenma doesn’t like surprises. It’s better if I wait for him to see me when he expects to see me.”

At that point, Atsumu has heard one too many passing comments and fond anecdotes about Kageyama Tobio to not _know._ But he figures that everyone must be a little bit in love with Hinata, in a way.

Before they each have to go their separate ways— _You don’t have to, Atsumu-kun, seriously, I’m crashing with Suga, and his new apartment is a twenty minute train ride from here, you have to go to the other side of the city_ —, Hinata makes him promise to call Osamu and tell him what he’s feeling. 

“A good friend once told me that no one can read your mind,” Hinata says, kicking his shin lightly. “So the only way to solve anything is to _talk it out._ ”

Atsumu sighs, but it comes out fond. “Was that good friend named Kita Shinsuke?”

“Sugawara Koushi.”

“Eh, close enough.”

They smile at each other. Then Hinata kicks him in the shin again and grins, before dashing off down the street and into the subway station. Within moments, his orange blob of hair is barely discernible between all the people coming and going. 

Atsumu watches him go, and sees someone who would understand what he means when he says he’s just eaten a full meal and his stomach is still gnawing. 

He calls Osamu. His brother picks up on the third ring.

“I know you’ve been wanting to practice more recipes with spices, so I bought you some,” Atsumu says, and he means, _I’m sorry._

“If they’re shit, I still hold the right of using you as my test subject for tasting,” Osamu answers, and he hears, _I know you are._

They talk a little. About big things and little things. Atsumu wanders uptown, to the hotel with the pocket-sized rooms he’s staying at, and as he watches the sun start to set between too large buildings and panes of glass, he feels the emptiness in his stomach tug at his skin so hard it leaves him breathless. It’s a small moment of transcendence, the kind he feels only when he has both feet inside the court, on either side of a net. He could do with more moments like it. What the hell else is life made of?

And so he tells Osamu, “It won’t be the same without ya, you know. It might be just as good. But it won’t be the same.”

“That might be the sweetest thing you’ve ever said to me,” Osamu deadpans, and only Atsumu would be able to tell that he’s smiling.

“Yeah, yeah,” he says. “I know.”

A beat.

“It won’t be the same without you, either,” Osamu tells him. 

Atsumu looks at the falling dusk, hazy with the city lights. “Tell ya what,” he says, in lieu of an answer. “That whole being happier than you thing. Let’s make it a promise instead of a bet, yeah?”

Osamu chuckles in his ear, grainy with distance. “Kita-san would be proud.”

“Don’t say his name,” Atsumu hisses. “You know that’s how you summon him.”

“Dumbass,” Osamu says, but there’s no bite in it. “Sure, whatever. It’s a promise, then.”

“Promise?”

“Yeah. I promise.”

**iv.**

When Atsumu was little, he asked his mother, as all kids do, how to tell when something’s dead.

She told him you know something’s dead when it stops moving. When it can’t go anywhere else—that’s when you can tell. 

At twenty-three years old, Atsumu figures, it still holds true. A dead thing can’t feel hunger, after all.

It’s hard to tell a story with no ending. He doesn’t like to settle for periods at the end of his sentences; there’s always somewhere to push it further, farther, to keep the ball in the air and the game still going. Because it’s a simple thing when you strip down all the steps that led you here in the first place. 

So when Atsumu steps out into the court next to the person he trusts the most, yelling out a hungry cry that calls for one more time, knowing his best friend in the entire world is watching from the stands and rooting for him—he’s kind of walking on air. 

_Yesterday’s gone._

The starting whistle echoes. The crowd roars, and Atsumu’s stomach gnaws once more. His hands itch.

_So what will you do today?_

**Author's Note:**

> i'm actually pretty happy with how this one turned out! it's my first time writing atsumu in any ways, so please tell me if you think i did good at it :D
> 
> as always, comments and kudos are appreciated! if you want to yell at me, you can do that on twitter @bornfrombeauty.
> 
> see y'all next time!!


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